RPG Medium

Highwinds is a space opera RPG, with elements of fantasy thrown in for good measure. The game encourages you to “Take the role of resourceful heroes on the edge of space and fight pirates, save people from killer robots, and explore ancient vaults locked in astral space.”

Focused on combat, the game only has four stats for its characters: Accuracy, Dodge, Initiative, and Toughness. You pick your skills, your talents, your equipment, and off you go to swash your buckle across the stars.

Powered by FATE Accelerated, Iron Edda Accelerated is a Norse-mythology inspired Mecha-RPG about warriors fighting alongside the bones of dead giants and metal monsters. Ragnarok has come to the land, and the evil dwarves are sending their mechanical constructs to destroy everything you hold dear. How will you survive the coming cataclysm?

You have a lot of choices: perhaps the most overt answer is “by binding my soul to the bones of an ancient giant and go Kaiju it up,” but that’s only one option. You could also be a Skald, a Seer, a Farmer, a Merchant, a Shieldbearer, or more; and all of these destinies result in a very different kind of game.

Session Zero is a card-based solo character creation game. It is, in short, a quick and easy journaling game to build a creative backstory. You draw at least five playing cards from a shuffled deck, and based on the prompts you write out significant moments in your character’s history before the beginning of the game.

It’s called Session Zero, because that’s what a session zero is. As a gaming term, session zero is, natch, what comes before the first session. It is, in essence, the prologue to the game.

Inspirisles is an all ages RPG, with a focus on storytelling, empathy, and cooperation. Its secondary purpose is to help teach you Sign Language.

Now I could leave it at that, but that would do the game a great disservice. It is as creative and well designed as any system, pulling narrative inspiration from Arthurian legend and mythology. It focuses on collaboration, world-building, and teen-adventures in the style of YA novels and 80s classics like The Neverending Story, Labyrinth, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Hopelessly Devoted is a NSFW solo-journaling RPG, and this is going to be an uncomfortable post for some of you. If you don’t want to hear it, that’s fine, see you next time. For everyone else, some ground-rules:

First and foremost, I will not hear any dissing of the sexual role-play community. The RPG community should know what it’s like to have people totally misconstrue our hobbies in a manner that details their hangups more than it does ours. Even worse, we know what it’s like for someone to get it right, and then shake their heads and say it’s weird. We know better. People like what they like.

Apocalypse World does something that no other RPG that I can think of does. It deals with sex.

Now…some of the more experienced players out there might have just whispered “Dominate” under their breath. Or perhaps “Frozen Witchfire Embrace.” Or even “Charm Person.” Or…gods protect us… F.A.T.A.L.

Because yes, despite what I said, a lot of RPG systems deal with sex, and almost all of them do so poorly.

No, I can’t say poorly…they do so casually. Childishly. And some very poorly.

Betrayal at House on the Hill is an RPG.

No, it isn’t.

I mean, it is, kinda, but it very much isn’t. Betrayal is a lovely little game where you create your own 80s horror flick, complete with traitor, campy villain, and spooky house. If you go looking to buy Betrayal you’ll find it on the shelf next to all the other board games, not an RPG to be seen.

Mörk Borg is grimdark, apocalyptic, and born from a mix of doom-metal album cover and fever dream. It is rust, rags, and rotten meat. It is rules-light and tone-rich.

First, let’s talk about violence. Combat in Mörk Borg is simple enough. It borrows heavily from the d20 systems you’re familiar with; roll a d20, add your bonuses, and if you roll over the difficulty rating, you succeed.

The difficulty rating is 12. It’s always 12. Enemies never roll, similar to Knave, and you either roll over 12 to hit, or over 12 to dodge. The difficulty is constant no matter which monsters you’re fighting against.

World Ending Game is an RPG about what it says on the tin. It is, quote: “a falling-action game. Many existing game systems excel at climactic final battles or big-stakes adventures, but don’t allow you to sit in the aftermath, thinking about all that has come before and imagining what could come after. World Ending Game is a tool to let you do just this.”

The game is mostly comprised of minigames, called Endings. They allow the players to narrate and resolve the overarching story. It gives the players time to say goodbye, rather than deal with the abrupt smash-cut ending that most campaigns provide. World Ending Game is the denouement session to everything that came before it.

Set in space, Mothership takes its cues from the horror sci-fi genre; everything from Aliens to Event Horizon. Players familiar with Call of Cthulhu will likely be comfortable with the game’s sanity and panic mechanics, while the addition of classes and a tiered skill tree round out the flexibility of character creation. Space is dangerous, death comes easy, and if your character is lucky enough, they might make it to second level.